Despite an ultra-low 3.9 percent unemployment rate, about one-third of US adults last year faced financial insecurity and often struggled to pay unexpected expenses, a US Federal Reserve survey found.
For three in 10 adults, their monthly incomes fluctuated — often because their work schedules changed at short notice — and that caused about one in 10 Americans to miss some bill payments, according to the report released on Tuesday.
Forty percent of US adults would have had to borrow money or sell something to pay an emergency expense of just US$400.
The data suggest that financial security evades even many of those who are working.
About one-third of US adults relied on “gig” work or side jobs last year to bolster their incomes.
Fewer than four of 10 Americans think their retirement savings are sufficient, and a quarter have none at all, the Fed survey found.
At the same time, the survey found the improving economy is benefiting more Americans at all education and income levels.
Nearly three-quarters of US adults said they are either “living comfortably” or “doing OK” financially, up from 71 percent in 2016 and 10 points higher than when the annual survey began in 2013.
Just 7 percent of adults said it was difficult to get by financially last year. That is down by about half from 2013.
More Americans are asking for or receiving raises, a sign that the low unemployment rate is giving workers more bargaining power.
Just more than half — 52 percent — of adults said they received a raise last year, up from 46 percent in 2016.
The increase was even larger for those with less education, likely reflecting widespread increases in state minimum wage levels.
Nearly half of those with a high-school diploma or less got a raise, up from just 38 percent in 2016.
Still, separate US government data showed that the percentage of people getting raises remains below where it was before the 2008-2009 recession.
For the first time ever, the survey asked about opioids, and found that one-quarter of white Americans — and one-fifth of Americans overall — know someone addicted to opioids.
Those exposed to opioid addiction were somewhat less likely to say that their local economy is good or excellent, the report found.
Just two-thirds of blacks and Latinos said they are living comfortably or doing okay financially, compared with 77 percent of whites.
Yet those figures have increased 12 points for blacks and Latinos since 2013 and 10 percent for whites.
Only 57 percent of unmarried parents said they are at least doing okay financially, compared with 76 percent of married parents. Married couples with no children were doing even better, with 84 percent saying they are at least doing okay.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained